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Rangers came into existence in response to challenges that were far different than those faced in the Old World during the 17th century. The major differences were in the ruggedness of the terrain and the enemy they faced in the New World. The American Indian did not conceive of war as a long campaign of maneuver, and he despised pitched battles. Hardened by his environment, accustomed to traveling great distances on foot, he was more inclined to use stealth and reconnaissance to select his objective, then execute a swift and devastating raid that employed terror to maximum advantage.
European tactics and methods were useless against this combination of terrain and enemy. Survival dictated the need for new methods. Small groups of men began to move out from the settlements to scout the surrounding territory for signs of enemy movement and to provide early warning. Reports of these groups include words such as: "This day, ranged 9 miles." Thus, the "Ranger" was born. As their skill in woodcraft and this new form of warfare was perfected, it was now the turn of the "Rangers" to use the raid. They were versatile from the start, able to move on foot or horseback. In addition to over-land raids, they conducted over-water operations against the French and their Indian allies.
Overview of King Phillip's War
The first organized Ranger unit was activated in 1670 to combat a hostile tribe under the leadership of Metocomet, also called King Phillip. The Rangers, commanded by Captain Benjamin Church, crushed the attacks and ended King Phillip's War in 1675.
Excerpt I: Anawan Rock
Location: Winthrop Street (Route 44) about 1 1/2 miles east of Anawan Street (Route 118).
History: Captain Benjamin Church captured Chief Anawan, a Wampanoag sachem and advisor to King Philip, at Anawan Rock in August 1676. This action ended the King Philip's War in southeastern Massachusetts. Anawan, along with his remaining warriors, fled to this location at the edge of Squanakonk Swamp to hide from the English troops that were searching the woods of southeastern Massachusetts for any remaining Indian resistance. Church, a famous Indian fighter, received word from an Indian informant that Anawan was hiding in the north end of Squanakok Swamp. After a difficult march to the site (Route 44 did not exist at the time), Church and his company surprised Anawan, who surrendered without a fight. Anawan was taken to Plymouth. Despite the protest of Captain Church, who had given Anawan a promise of safe conduct at his surrender, the authorities there beheaded him.
Excerpt II: Death of King Philip, 1676
Throughtout the summer of 1676, Philip and his tribe was hunted by regular and irregular forces. The irregular forces were Rangers composed of settlers and 'Praying Indians' under the command of Captain Benjamin Church. On August 1 Philip's village was attacked. While he escaped, his wife and child were taken prisoner. On August 12 King Philip was killed by a 'Praying Indian' John Alderman. His head was taken to Plymouth where it was mounted on a stake and stood for the next twenty-five years.
Excerpt III: Death of King Philip, 1676
Throughout the summer the Wampanoag were hunted down by Captain Benjamin Church's rangers and Praying Indian scouts. Philip went into hiding near Mount Hope, but Queen Awashonks of the Sakonett surrendered and switched sides. On August 1st Philip escaped during an attack on his village, but the English captured his wife and son who were sent as prisoners to Martha's Vineyard. Five days later, the Pocasset were caught near Taunton, and Weetamoo (Alexander's widow) drowned while trying to escape. The English cut off her head and put it on display in Taunton.
Philip and Anawon remained in hiding in the swamp near Mount Hope until betrayed by an informer, John Alderman. Guided by Alderman, Benjamin Church's rangers surrounded Philip on August 12th. Alderman shot and killed Philip (for which he was given one of Philip's hands as a trophy). Philip's corpse was beheaded and quartered. His head was displayed on a pole at Plymouth for 25 years. Anawon was captured on August 28th and later killed by a mob, and Tuspaquin was executed by firing squad after he surrendered. Philip's wife and son were reportedly sold as slaves to the West Indies, but it appears they were instead exiled from Massachusetts and joined the Sokoki at Odanak.
Excerpt IV: The Military History of the Ranger
The history of the American Ranger is a long and colorful saga of courage, daring, and outstanding leadership. It is a story of men whose skills in the art of fighting have seldom been surpassed. The history of the US Ranger did not begin with Robert Rogers in the 1750s as is widely believed. Units specifically designated as Rangers and using Ranger tactics were employed on the American frontier as early as 1670. It was the Rangers of Captain Benjamin Church who brought the Indian conflict known as "King Phillip's War" to a successful conclusion in 1675.
Excerpt V: Event Details
August 12, 1676 - This was perhaps in reality the most memorable of all the days of King Philip's war, being the date at which he sealed his devotion to the principles of pure patriotism with his life's blood; having before sacrificed on the altar of his country's freedom nearly all that men usually hold near and dear. He had already been reduced to poverty in everything almost save principle, and had nothing more to give but his dying efforts to save his country from the white man's covetous grasp, and the small remnant of his people from a most degrading bondage. All that man could give to save his country, King Philip cheerfully contributed: - property, power, his best and unyielding efforts, unabated even when deprived of wife, child, kindred, and nearly all his followers and friends; and last of all he gave his life. What patriot ever could do or ever did more? At the date of King Philip's death his forces had become so much reduced in numbers that he was being constantly driven from place to place, and early on the morning of Saturday,
August 12, 1676, Capt. Church and the soldiers under his command found King Philip, and the small but faithful remnant of his once powerful band, in a swamp near Mount Hope, or what was then called Pokanoket, now Bristol, R.I. The knowledge that this place was his temporary refuge was communicated to the English by a traitorous Indian called Alderman.
Capt. Benjamin Church, in his history of this transaction, printed in 1716, says: "there was just now tidings from Mount Hope; an Indian came down from thence where Philip's camp now is, on to Sandy Point over against Trip's and hallooed and made signs to be brought over, and being brought he reported that he [156] was fled from Philip who said he has killed my brother just before I came away for giving some advice that displeased him. He said he had fled for fear of meeting with the same fate his brother had met with. He told them also that Philip was then in Mount Hope Neck, upon a little spot of upland that was in the south end of the miry swamp just at the foot of the mount."
Among those Englishmen who accompanied Captain Benjamin Church on this expedition, which was set out on foot at the receipt of this intelligence, was Capt. Peleg Sanford and Capt. Roger Goulding, both of Rhode Island, and Capt. John Williams of what is now Scituate, Mass. They arrived on the outskirts of the swamp about midnight, when to Capt. Roger Goulding was assigned the task of "beating up Philip's headquarters," as they termed it, or, in other words, finding those quarters and drawing the Indians into an action or a general engagement, or putting them to flight if they declined a battle. An allotted number of Church's soldiers were drawn out and assigned to the command of Capt. Goulding, who was also furnished with a pilot well acquainted with the ground.
Church's instructions to Capt. Goulding were to be very careful in his approach to Philip and his warriors, and to be sure not to be discovered by them until daylight, telling Goulding that his (Church's) custom in the like cases was to creep until they came as near as they could, and that as soon as the Indians discovered them to cry out, which was the watch word for his men to fire. Church also "directed him, when the enemy should start and take into the swamp, they should pursue with speed, every man shouting and making what noise they could, for he (Church) would give orders to his ambuscade to fire on any that should come silently." Church then stationed the remainder [157] of his soldiers in advantageous positions around the swamp to intercept the Indians who should flee before the soldiers under Goulding and seek safety on the upland, assigning the right wing of these sentinels to the command of Capt. John Williams, of Scituate.
One of King Philip's men, who was probably at that time sent out as a scout to learn if all was well, came suddenly upon Captain Goulding, who fired on the Indian, whereupon all Goulding's men fired upon those Indians in the shelter, before the latter had time to arise upon their feet, and so overshot them, doing no particular injury to any of the Indians.
Church informs us that the Indians' shelter was built like a shed, being left open on the side next to the swamp for the convenience of escape in case of surprise. The shelter was probably made of the boughs of trees laid upon a frame work of sticks, and perhaps in part covered with skins, to protect the inmates from the rain. At any rate it appears to have been constructed differently from the ordinary wigwam, and afforded to the occupants several other advantages over that style of Indian house, for doubtless it was much larger, thus allowing a greater number of Indian warriors to lodge together, and of course that made it easier to rally them, and to command their ready and united action in case of an attack, and the Indians seem to have availed themselves of each and every of these advantages when that attack came; though it must be confessed that Philip and his followers were taken somewhat by surprise, and fired on in their shelter as the first intimation that the English in force were upon them.
In the attempt that the Indians now made to escape, Capt. Church informs us that King Philip took time only to throw "his petunk and powder horn over his head and catched up his gun," and "without any more cloths than his small breeches and stockings ran directly [158] on two of Capt. Church's ambush. They let him come fair within shot, and the Englishman's gun missing fire he bid the Indian fire away and he did so to purpose, sent one musket bullet through his heart and another not over two inches from it. He fell upon his face in the mud and water with his gun under him.
By this time the enemy perceiving they were waylaid on the east side of the swamp tacked short about." It was now and under these disastrous circumstances that the aged sub-chief, the long faithful and still reliable Annawon, first came to the notice of Captain Church, his attention being attracted to the veteran Indian warrior by the brave efforts of the latter to bring order out of the momentary confusion that reigned among the Indians, to recover them from their surprise and cause them to end their retreat by turning upon their pursuers; and "Iootash, Iootash," loudly repeated by the aged chief, caused Capt. Church to ask his Indian ally Peter who that was that called so, who answered, "It was old Annawon, Philip's great Captain, calling on his soldiers to stand to it and fight stoutly." The Indian that had slain King Philip ran with all speed to Capt. Church and informed him concerning what he had done, but was told to be silent about it and let no one else know it until they had driven the Indians from the swamp.
With the numerous advantages that the English possessed, had the Indians been under a less able commander than Annawon, probably the red men would then and there have been all killed or captured; but as it was, Annawon, by deceiving the English with some pretended show of fight, at the same time conducted a most successful retreat through a place on the border of the swamp that Church had left unguarded, and nearly all were thus enabled to escape.
The English, finding further pursuit of no avail, all came together at the Indian shelter, where this engagement [159] began, when Capt. Church for the first time communicated to them intelligence of that momentous event, the slaying of King Philip, and at the same time ordered the body of the dead chieftain (till then unmoved) to be pulled out of the mud and mire of the swamp where he had fallen to adjoining upland. This was performed by some of the Indians then serving under Church, some seizing hold of the stockings and others the breeches, and thus ruthlessly dragging the corpse of the fallen monarch through mud and water to the shore.
Excerpt VI: Endgame
By the late summer of 1676 most Native resistance was crushed. Metacom himself was located and killed in an ambush by Church's rangers. Groups of Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuck, and others were captured or surrendered to the colonists. Native resistors who were not captured removed themselves north or westward and joined with French-allied Native Peoples in Maine and Canada or took refuge in New York colony on the Hudson River. Many Native People were sold out of the country as slaves while others, mostly young children, were put into involuntary servitude for the English until they were twenty-four years old. Any suspected of killing English people were tried and executed.
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